Review: Tins by Alex Shearer

In my experience, tins and fingers dont go well together. A few years back I found myself at the hospital after losing terribly in a battle against a tin of kidney beans.'Kidney beans are good for iron levels, I hear. Bleeding all over the kitchen floor, not so much. Oh, the agony of my hand and its plaintive sobs of haemoglobin.

In tears, I called up my husband, who did his knight-in-a-shining-Ford-Laser thing and rushed home from work. Meanwhile I wrapped up my hand with paper towels galore and a veritable patchworks quilt worth of hand towels. I had no idea which bit of my hand was cut, precisely, but I didnt relish the idea of peering through all that blood in order to find out.

Since it was late in the evening and the hospital is just down the road, we dashed off to emergency (which yes, does sound a touch melodramatic, but thats the only place theyll admit tin-mauled people clutching tea towels). And then we sat around for a long time listening to very, very ill people coughing up bits of lungs and hazing around in the depths of their ailments.

Finally, it was my turn. I went into the consultation room and offered up my tea-towel swathed hand. The doctor, very kindly, very gently, unwrapped it.

Oh, she said. So where is the wound, exactly?

Once the blood had been cleared away, I wasnt exactly sure, either. Possibly on my little finger? That little bit of skin near the joint?

I have overactive platelets, I said, helpfully.

The doctor, to her credit, did not laugh at what was an obvious case of hypochondria. Perhaps she was relieved that there was nothing at all wrong with me.

How about we put a Bandaid on it, hmm?

Im only thankful that she didnt offer me one with a picture on it. Id never have lived it down.

Anyway. If you think thats a ridiculous (if entirely true) story, its nothing compared with Alex Shearers'Tins (known as'Canned in the US, since apparently tin is a noun that baffles kids in that area of the world). Our protagonist is Fergal Bamfield, an overwhelmingly, abundantly mediocre kid whose eccentricity is explained away by his parents as his being clever.

You can get away with plenty of silly or questionable behaviour (see above hospital story) if people decide to dub you clever. (Although I do hope that whenever its applied to me its not'always in inverted commas.) In Fergals instance, one of these clearly divergent behaviours is collecting tins. But not just any old tins, oh no. Discounted tins. Those ones on the sale shelves in the supermarket that are bald of their labels and look as though theyve been kicked in the guts with a baseball bat. For Fergal, each and every tin is an ugly little duckling in need of a home. An ugly little duckling that has the potential to be hacked open to reveal all manner of miraculous treasures. Such as duck pate, perhaps. Or pineapple.

Or a finger.

When Fergal opens such a tin, hes less concerned than he is baffled. A finger certainly is a curious thing to find inside a tin. And my, what of that earring found in that other tin? Oh, and that ear, found in a tin snapped up by his clever friend Charlotte for her own collection? (Surely you didnt think that tin collecting was so very esoteric that Fergal wouldnt be able to form a community around the endeavour, did you?)

After a bit of deep thought and the subsequent finding of a please help me! letter in a tin, the two decide that theres probably something slightly suspicious going on at a local cannery. The two use their sleuthing skills to determine the likely source of these peculiarly defective cans, and one night Fergal slips away to try to get to the bottom of the mystery. Only he doesnt return, and its only when Charlotte receives a highly personalised letter in a can that she begins to realise what might have become of Fergal

This is a rambunctiously ridiculous book, and if you have absolutely no issues with reading something of that sort youll likely enjoy it. Shearer has a page-turning prose style that sees you reading relentlessly (Terminator-style, even) until you get to the final page, and the narrative grows and builds into an immensity of silliness by its end. Its the sort of thing you could imagine in an episode of'Rockos Modern Life (remember that? How old am I, guys? So old.) It requires a certain gleeful suspension of disbelief, particularly where all the fortuitous communication through tin cans is involved, but for the most part it works very well indeed.

My only qualm was the way in which the transition of the third part of the book (Fergals disappearance) was handled. Here the drama and zaniness steps up dramatically, but the transition is terribly abrupt, with a mere scene marker delineating the gap between Fergals wondering about the source of the cans and his sudden disappearance. This part of the book, however, forms the key plot twist and climax, and I suspect that its here that readers will either find themselves enormously in love with the sheer mischief of this story, or will find themselves a bit off-side. Im a bit on the fence, personally, and dont quite feel that a twist of these proportions was quite set up by the (relatively) mundane events of the prior two parts of the book.

That said, the back cover copy does warn that it may contain traces of nutsto which my response would be: only traces? If youre after something fun and cheery (and a wee bit gruesome), give it a shot, but please take my anecdote, and this book, as a warning against the terrible dangers of the humble tin can.

Rating:(good)

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2 comments

Funnily enough, I get grief about leaving tin lids open and on the bench for the same reason not my experience but Chriss as a child. Apparently the sight of an open tin with razor-sharp edge gives him the heebie-jeebies. A timely anecdote